“It” is the so-called Pacific Alliance, a free-trade bloc that was first outlined in the April 2011 Lima Declaration and was officially established in June 2012. Its four members are Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru -- four countries with a long record of supporting free markets and open commerce. Over the past year, these countries have abolished tariffs on 90 percent of all goods they trade with each other, and have also taken many other steps (such as eliminating visa requirements, merging stock exchanges, and launching a scholarship program) to integrate their economies. Next week, their presidents will meet in Colombia to sign yet another multilateral agreement.

The Pacific Alliance nations account for more than one-third of Latin America’s total GDP, a similar share of its population, and roughly half of its global trade. They are the highest-ranking Latin American countries in the World Bank’s 2013 Ease of Doing Business Index, and they are also some of the region’s fastest-growing economies. “Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru will grow an average 5 percent this year,” notes John Paul Rathbone of the Financial Times, citing IMF data, “while Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela, will grow an average of 2 percent.”

Not surprisingly, many other nations want to join the Pacific Alliance, and the list of “observer” countries has grown to include Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Japan, New Zealand, Panama, Spain, and Uruguay. As that list suggests, the trade bloc has attracted governments from well beyond Latin America’s shores. Indeed, it is considered a promising vehicle for boosting economic cooperation and integration between Latin America and Asia. In other words, it is seen as a valuable complement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade deal that is now being discussed by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. Colombia is eager to join the TPP talks, and the Pacific Alliance will help Bogotá make its case.

Hopefully the trade bloc will also encourage Brazil to move away from the protectionist policies that are holding back its economic development. Whereas the Pacific Alliance countries have become Latin America’s biggest champions of free trade -- Mexico has actually signed more free-trade pacts than any other nation on earth -- Brazil remains a stubborn opponent of trade liberalization, and it has actually become moreprotectionist under President Dilma Rousseff, who took office in January 2011. (Two years ago, Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega complained that rising imports had left his country “under siege.”) This divergence in economic policies can be seen, not only in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index (in which Brazil ranks a lowly 130th), but also in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom: The Pacific Alliance countries all rank among the top 50 freest economies worldwide, while Brazil ranks 100th.